Catártica: November'22

What is worth more: art or life?

3

AGC The Popsicle Boy Victor Alvarado

9

The Grave of Butterflies

12

Michel C.M Art in Agony Ernesto Ocaña

16

Behind the disappointment: Rory Gilmore

22

Rossanna Huerta The Phoney. The Merits earned (¿?)

by Diego Rivera M. I. Flores Nachón

25

AGC

WHAT IS WORTH MORE

ART OR LIFE? 3

Art, like a living and present entity, invites its viewer to interact with him, he provokes, comforts mostly amazes, and sometimes even bores the people in front of him, but as soon as it incites the viewer to rebel, to protest and to act, he comes back to life one again.

La Gioconda/Mona Lisa (1503)

The Hay Wain (1821)

Leonardo da Vinci (1452 - 1519) Museum: Louvre Country: France Date: May 29, 2022 Protestant: Young Man A man disguised as a senior citizen attempts to damage the protective glass of the work and smears whipped cream on its surface. He then throws red roses at the cameras before being caught by security.

John Constable (1776 - 1837) Place: National Gallery Country: England Date: July 4, 2022 Protestant: Just Stop Oil Young people paste posters over the piece to present a new version that shows the same landscape but is polluted, while gluing their hands to the frame.

4

Allegoria della primavera/ Spring Allegory (c. 14771478)

Sandro Botticelli (1445 - 1510) Museum: Uffizi Gallery Country: Italy Date: July 22, 2022 Protestants: Ultima Generazione Two people use glue to attach their hands to the painting glass, while another group member spreads a banner with the legend "Ultima Generazione. No gas. No coal."

The Last Supper, a Copy of the original by Leonardo da Vinci

Giampietrino (1508 - 1549) Museum: Royal Academy Country: England Date: July 5, 2022 Protestants: Just Stop Oil. Activists attached themselves to the work's s frame, spray-painted "No New Oil" underneath the painting, and called on the Royal Academy of Arts' trustees, workers, and members to join the cause and be part of the peaceful civil resistance.

5

Massacre in Korea (1951)

Pablo Picasso (1881 - 1973) Museum: National Gallery of Victoria Country: Australia Date: October 9, 2022 Protestors: Extinction Rebellion Two people glued their hands to the glass of the artwork and unfurled a banner saying, "Climate chaos = war + famine."

The Sunflowers (1888)

Vincent Van Gogh (1853 - 1890) Museum: National Gallery Country: London Date: October 14, 2022 Protestant: Just Stop Oil. Two activists threw tomato soup on the painting and glued their palms to the museum wall.

6

Piles of cereal, from the series The Haystacks (1890)

Claude Monet (1840 - 1926) Museum: Museum Barberini Country: Germany Date: October 23rd, 2022 Protestants: Letzte Generation Activists throw mashed potatoes at the painting and stick their hands under it.

The Sower (1888)

Vincent Van Gogh (1853 - 1890) Museum: Palazzo Bonaparte Country: Italy Date: November 4, 2022 Protestants: Ultima Generazione Trio throws vegetable soup at the artwork and glues their hands to the wall of the premises.

7

The Naked Maja (1795 - 1800) and The Clothed Maja (1800 - 1807)

Francisco de Goya (1746 - 1828) Museum: Museo Nacional del Prado Country: Spain Date: November 5, 2022 Protestants: Vegetable Future Two young women stick to the frames of the works and write between the two paintings "+1, 5º", in reference to the UN's announcement about the impossibility to comply with the Paris Agreement.

Tod und Leben / Death and Life (1910 - 1915)

Gustav Klimt (1862-1918) Museum: Leopold Museum Country: Austria Date: November 15, 2022 Protestants: Letzte Generation Two activists throw oil on the work and stick their hands on the protective glass.

Note: The protests have not damaged any artwork.

8

THE POPSICLE BOY Victor Alvarado

More than a movement, a MEMEntrepreneurship.

Victor Alvarado presents a World of Candy, what he calls a MEMEntrepreneurship, a kind of satirical performance made on his own brand of candies and sweets. In this he seeks to parody the false neoliberal promise that today's world presents us with through rose-colored proposals: sweetening a reality that many people continue to deny affects them.

9

This ideal dream demands that we selfexploit ourselves in order to reach the great lost paradise, however it is full of obstacles, flaws and hidden disadvantages to prevent anyone who enters from reaching the end of the goal. The works in this project seek to portray the bittersweet reality of cultural workers who find in their daily lives precarious practices, over-measured exploitation and salaries made to the measure of 1910.

This project takes to the absurd the premise of turning the cultural subject into an integral entertainment company -a kind of struggling cultural manager-, who uses his creative work to point out the incongruities of the same system to which he ascribes himself. The crisis from which the cultural worker suffers and which we mock every day with memes.

10

Our commitment is focused on creating and offering experiences to the consumer since Mundo de Caramelo proposes parodies, memes, sweet placebos and artistic products in the same product to generate a critical and political reflection through an almost bittersweet humor.

In addition to alluding to the aesthetic pleasure of consumption present in the experience of desire for attractive sweetened artistic objects of the highest quality on the market. In this way, MEMEntrepreneurship is positioned as the new entertainment within the creative industry.

Therefore, these products do not seek to transform or solve the affections they make reference to, but rather to generate an emotion in the individual that leads him to feel that the systemic affections are shared and have a common origin in the political.

This beautiful fiction is supported by the advertising imaginary which appropriates the traditional marketing and commercialization strategies of this type of products, all this with the purpose of developing an integral fiction where the capitalist propaganda of this world of sweetened illusions is questioned.

You can be part and share your bittersweet experiences with Mundo de Caramelo, the Lab area is always looking for new ways of self-exploitation to make the experience of living much more bittersweet.

www.mundodecaramelo.com mundodecaramelo@gmail.com Elchicopaletas

11

THE GRAVE OF BUTTERFLIES I Start/Leakage No day will be repeated not even for a thousand prayers to feel intensely that the mediocrity of feelings not a presence much less someone alive In the night where the dead return according to the myths of people we reached the last consequences of our genuine desires they are sculpted by the spirit Is it the cold that makes us return or is it the one that causes us to flee?

I kiss my wounds I embrace my right to disgrace I present my future face to face with my past both order different drinks one staggers in drunkenness, the other forgets whether The traveler has missed the targets blinded by strobes flashes of luminous naivety Have we lived long enough?

It's been a daily question, at the limit of human capabilities and its borders of delirium each body that has decided to move, by choice rather than starvation you may see yourself lost exhausted by the journey into the unknown, to the genuine

12

"The sick year left you hostage on some dates that surround and humiliate you" the breathy breath cuts through the air with just a couple of words an aeolian lament that asks with deceit Between your loves, have you ever found yourself there?

EITHER Have you lost yourself in them?

We shouldn't stand still but parsimony is unstable put one foot in front of the other to rustle the orange flowers with my steps

Useless to try We should predict our sorrows, dodge our pains but the sorrows and smiles they could never be known prior to their meeting “what is safe no longer has a mystery” Forget your own promises it would be the greatest of betrayals where the victim and the verb are meat and tears the sorrows of the beginning the sound of the end, the unfinished drinks all those who drank the sun and the storms

Coast Lying in the shade of a palm tree that covered my chest during the moon bath in his absence I can see all the stars burning in the middle of my pupils flickering to the beat of a son huasteco as the prelude to the "hallway of the gods"

13

Every disconnection is a disagreement (from the old or what was previously called infra-real) of the natural what should not be ours Two herons took flight until they let go in free fall with elegance, they perched on the arch of the town what liturgical omen in a dream like the blood moon that opened the portal 100 years ago for the next ones I will no longer be present (I wasn't either now) Transatlantic waves they are generated from another day when the sun smokes the others see the stars the same ones that belong to the sea Map destiny witnesses / Tonight's average was 3 shooting stars or fireflies / (could be both) happening in the polished nights of the black mud The fading of the ecosystem by our immeasurable presence, drowns the dragonflies between chlorine and hypochlorite those lizards on the bamboo walls, They watch me as he exhumes the sea salt from my body, foolish golden horseflies to die, bats flying to the shore of the day I saw the Pacific eat the sun like lovers already known litmus melts its edges an aquatic hallucination This is not a surreal wasteland has specific coordinates

14

You have to urinate the fear to see the green bush grow, the sincerity of the trade disregarding what is left over, you wouldn't learn to swim online the experience would drown you "Naturality in art is perhaps the most complicated artifice"

The butterflies that surround you when in the body there is doubt maybe those are the blessings The pelicans that surf intimately they know the wind, lean your body look straight at the sun, we do not profess inspiration we are sweat and excesses contradictions and obstinacy We are the lost children of Cumaná The homesickness of every morning echoes in silent words the sea dictating its strongest struggles in the glowing unison of the first color of the day bathing deep in your cornea destroyed by the shadows of the mangrove In the crocodile graveyard on the banks of the Cololotepec river it's the chunchaca brimming with the joy of the end "Between the fine line between good and evil: Mezcal" And the sky dissolves cloud by cloud red orange rose blue after… after nothing perish

15

Michel M.C.

Retrato de Frida Kahlo producido a partir de AI

Ernesto Ocaña

ART IN AGONY:

THE MOST TRANSIENT SCHISM OF CONTEMPORANEITY I believe that art is the only thing that surpasses our humanity, it is the only human construct that holds a certain divinity to its essence, it echoes in our eyes the sublime, mythical and dubious gaze of god. What is certain is that art is currently in something of a crisis, this last year especially seems to have been characteristically significant, something is perpetually changing, so much so that even the hermetic world of art is slowly catching on, too late as always.

It is extremely difficult to define what makes up art, what encompasses it. Our contemporary conception of it, vaguely referring to the aesthetic and the creative, is relatively recent. I believe, however, that the most important thing that distinguishes art is that it is the immaculate imperfection of its aesthetic component and its earnest humanity.

16

Imagen de paisaje basada en el estilo de Magritte a partir de AI

Speaking of humanity and imperfection, one of the most important achievements within the field of artificial intelligence is artificial neural networks. A neural network is a computational model inspired by the processes behind the workings of biological brains, so that by processing large amounts of data, a neural network can “learn” various highly specialized skills. Almost any ambiguous human ability can be crudely but impossibly efficiently mimicked through neural networks and various learning models.

Apart from the apocalyptic considerations that this subset of technologies has, for art they represent a sociocultural schism.

On the one hand, they represent the total democratization of art, at the rate at which these technologies advance. In less than five years anyone will be able to create almost any type of art as a hobby just by using their phone.

Art has always been an undoubtedly snobbish phenomenon, it has always been intrinsically linked with the upper classes, studying its history, learning the technique behind fine art or understanding the abstraction processes characteristic of contemporary art, witnessing it in museums and galleries, buying and selling it, etc. All this is an exclusive experience of a small stratum of the population. The academic branch of art has always also had the function of deciding what pieces are considered art and who can create it, one of the primary directives of art is to maintain itself as enigmatic and sublime, at least in appearance. Irrelevant as it is to society at large, undoubtedly the crowning triumph of art has been to convince the world that art is mythical in nature and can only be produced by special people. I am in part also convinced of his strange divinity, it is something difficult to deny, perhaps because it is a deception tinted with some truth.

17

This is, however, a disorderly and postmodern democratization, arising from consumerism, void of humanity. It's relatively easy to implement a deep learning model for creating art with relatively inexpensive computer equipment and test this technology for yourself. Without going into the technical minutiae of the implementation, its operation is relatively simple. We write what we want to see, we can even request for it to be in the "style" of a specific artist, and it will provide us with images of quite an impressive quality. This is totally legal, because art styles or compositional qualities cannot be registered under contemporary international copyright law.

Like everything human, this technology is not inherently good or bad, it has consequences of all kinds and each one will judge how it affects them individually. I think it affects me greatly, it stimulates all my ideas while tearing my heart, it reminds me of my ambivalent humanity.

This has also been a year of protests of all kinds, almost all of us pretend not to hear the grating footsteps of the entropy that is coming for us, but there are people who listen more closely, and they are unable to ignore it. Climate change is an undeniable and terrible reality, more significant the younger we are, and it will profoundly affect our lives. I'm glad that there are people who seek to do something about it, and I think they do it taking advantage of the most powerful human medium, obviously I'm not talking about art but about controversy. The art that we find in museums is the perfect prey for these publicity stunts, perfectly protected, but apparently defenseless, irrelevant but endowed with supposed magnificence, perfect to cause media outrage and indignation for a few days of this current eternity and to make people talk about certain things which they pretend to care about, apocalypse and art.

I'm not naive enough to think that these acts of protest are going to change the world for the better, but I think they are the closest to achieving it, it would be even better if such works were truly and earnestly assailed, it would be a little more effective, more entertaining, more blasphemous even. There is an extremely lucrative market in collective anger, today's journalists specialize in enraging the common folk, the average person. Unlike Avelina Lésper, these activists are not usually successful in their quest of artful destruction, nor is that their purpose. They simply take advantage of the contemporary mass media system to effectively share their message, and the only thing this situation says about art is that it possesses limited cultural power nowadays, its unique use is as angry bait on social media and the news.

18

Art seems to have become superfluous; the immediacy of his own aesthetic experience has overwhelmed it. It remains frozen in time, even contemporary art, which is the most recent branch of art, is mostly based on theory that is at least fifty years old. Rarely does the art industry or art as a discipline relate to the society that surrounds them, they comment on it without thoughtfulness or empathy and without intellectual curiosity, their irrelevance seems to be of their own making. I believe that art is dead, not because I find it inconsequential, impenetrable or lacking, it always has been. Art is divine, perfect, immaculate, only the mythos of its death can maintain this reality.

According to legends, every artist living, or dead has been preceded by Hecatoncheires of greater creative stature, it's these sort of legends that keep alive the imagination of the Avelinas of the world.

Art is dead and, in its tomb, it remains impeccable, idealized like a deity. The artists are apostles of its cult, resolute practitioners of necromancy and capable of accessing its divine essence through the Elysian Fields of Mictlán. However, it is likely that as narrated by the mad poet, Abdul Alhazred, that is not dead which can eternal lie...

I keep thinking about the exciting possibilities of truly committing violence against art and its institutions, but it seems to be a taboo for most people, even if they are not enthusiasts of art as I am. The spinning gears that make up the world keep us docile, in a world that is quick to approach its doomsday, destroying the physical representation of a painting that is already digitized seems irrelevant, but humans are slaves to the symbolic. It is absurd that we are outraged on behalf of physical representations of art when we are amid an extinction process of immense and avoidable magnitude, when global warming further impoverishes those who are already miserable, when most people are not benefited by there being a painting whose protective glass is not dripping in soup or slime.

Retrato de Van Gogh al estilo Picasso a partir de AI

19

However, the absurd in an absurd reality always becomes the norm. But that is not the only reason why I would like to sin against art, I would like to desecrate it, because I know it is irrelevant, because I want that to be clear, because I want to see it change and I am passionate about what it could become if it seeks to be relevant to the people who remain ignorant of it. I am an art evangelist and that is why I dream of extinguishing it and seeing it rise from the ashes. If one day we rebel against the system, I hope I can tear a Pollock with my bare hands or at least steal a Rothko to keep under my mattress.

I speak of reforming art, but obviously art exists beyond the gilded vaults of its academic custodians.

Art is everywhere, in urban music, in children's stories, in action movies, in walls plastered in graffiti, in the ornamental kitsch present in the house of every third-world granma, in our twilight and our childhood, everywhere but always considered as a different kind of art, a minor one.

Adversarial generative networks, machine learning, artificial intelligence, all of these are not a present danger to the mythical sort of art, it will always remain culturally isolated, its industry will always be ignorant of social contexts, its genius is just aesthetic, its intellectual prowess a legend, its irrelevance is perpetual and intentional, and even if that reverie dies out for the rest of us, its prophets will never stop believing. The art that is in danger is the minor art, the one that concerns us all, the one that encompasses our daily life.

In a few years I will be able to take a sentence and transform it into different images, choose the one I liked the most and use another computer model to transform the image into a three-dimensional space to print it in some kind of polymer in just a few hours, I will be a sculptor the same way anyone will be able to become a musician or a writer, and just as easily.

But when we claim the title of artist away from the necromancers, and mythic art loses the power of its perfection, its mysticism and perhaps even its divinity, when it becomes human and imperfect again, when it is reborn, earthy and full of tears, drooling and phlegm, when there is no longer a greater and a lesser art, then there will be a true democracy of art, although we will lose many things in such process.

I would be lying if I didn't admit how much I enjoy the status quo, how much I dream of the divinity of art, I appreciate its exceptionality while criticizing its aloofness, when I know they are two sides of the same coin. I despise its elitism, but deep down I would like to experience it, at least momentarily, and I fear what is awaiting on the other side of the scale. When the day comes that we can make art tuned to our whims and desires, with the ease with which we text today, many creative species of the minor arts will become extinct. The designers, the musicians and lyricists, the cameramen and scriptwriters, the cartoonists, inkers and colorists, all of them will be martyrs of progress, the photographers and actors will be even more so than they were at the end of the industrial revolution. It is already happening, like climate change, it is an inescapable fact.

One thing about writing sentences to be interpreted by a computer model is that it may not lack creativity, but it does lack the passion and fervent humanity, the stubborn and absurd effort to create something that has never been before and that all artists share. Just like fine art, AI-based art stands on the shoulders of the dwellers of Jötunheim, giants of immense gift, it is trained on databases made up of the creative work of living and dead artists without whom this technology could not exist.And this same technology formed and trained on human talent, courage and creativity will be the verdict that ensures its future irrelevance.

20

Tres rostros de personas que no existen, generados a partir de AI

I know that human passion is not a primary component of art, but I wish it were. It is perhaps unfortunate but also inevitable, the world is moving towards the fateful efficiency required by the endless pursuit of profit. I feel that a deep mourning is looming near me, and I don't have a single Warhol to set on fire, art is about to be reborn and the world is about to die, everything is changing yet life continues as if nothing is going on.

21

Rossanna Huerta

Behind the Disappointment:

Rory Gilmore

After years of visiting Stars Hollow and the lives of its most endearing characters I have to admit that every year I am more and more disappointed by the attitudes Rory Gilmore takes about her life and the expectations she had.

For anyone who hasn't seen the Gilmore Girls (or The Gilmore Girls) series, I'll give you a little context. It's not your typical tense mother/daughter story but a real development of two women, Lorelai and Rory, through the years and dealing with the common problems of a dysfunctional American family. I would encapsulate this series within the sub-genre of Life Recounts since, as such, there is no enemy to defeat, no series of challenges you have to overcome to become the hero of the story, it is just the physical and emotional development of mother and daughter within a small American town. For this very reason it entered into the hearts of many girls of my generation because in many moments we could identify with the young characters.

Something I have always liked is that on many occasions Gilmore Girls breaks with the stereotypes of certain characters, take for example Rory, she is not only the protagonist but she showed us that it was possible to be kind, intelligent, beautiful and still make bad decisions. Or Lane, instead of falling into the two possible fetishistic categories of Asian women, she breaks with the ideal by introducing us to a young indie music lover with no sexual or submissive interests. And so on, we could continue with every character in Stars Hollow.

However, I am still conflicted, and at the time I didn't perceive it (and I think it has to do with my level of maturity that I have reached) and that is Rory. I can't deny that she's a very well constructed character, with problems, dreams and fantasies but as the years ( and seasons) progress we see her become unfocused from her main purpose. There are many factors to which we can attribute this situation, I am not demanding that she remains the perfect young woman she was presented to us from the beginning, but something needed to be said. From this I was analyzing and I came to some studies done by Carol Dweck, a Stanford psychologist. They show that one of the key points of successful development is the ability of children to learn from mistakes.

And here you may be asking me "What does that have to do with Rory?", well, you have to be patient.

23

What do you usually say to children when they achieve academically? They usually praise their innate learning ability with a phrase along the following lines: "You are a little genius".

However, this is the worst thing you can do. Instead of congratulating them for the effort they made to complete X task, we are exalting their sense of superiority. It's not their fault, at the end of the day they are trying to present the best version of themselves but it creates a problem, they have a very hard time dealing with frustration.

Dweck proved this by dividing a group of students into 2 approaches, the first (A) would be congratulated for their great intelligence in solving a test, while the second group (B) would be appreciated for the great effort they had made. The results were simple, Group A felt confident after finishing the first exam, but when they took a second, more complicated exam, they felt much more stress, frustration and had lower grades. While group B managed to exceed the average grade of their previous group on both tests, they also demonstrated better emotional management and greater resilience to challenges. After all this talk we have arrived at the defendant of the trial: Rory.

Throughout the series we see how she is sheltered and put on a huge pedestal for being an extremely intelligent girl, she is not a prodigy as such, since on many occasions we are shown scenes where she goes out of her way to study. However, she unconsciously developed this relationship of ease of memorization = intelligence. Obviously when she finishes high school she faces her first big frustration, not being able to get into Harvard, and it almost destroys her. I loved that we got to see a bit of vulnerability from Rory, we don't need a perfect role to follow, we need a human being but he leaves us with a lot to be desired. Compared to her counterpart, Paris Geller, Rory feels entitled to always have the best because she is smart but the reality is different. Paris shows us the emotional development of Dweck's Group B, she forged a very strong character against her critics, and although she has a very affluent life given by privilege and "Old money" she is aware that it will not always be the only thing required to achieve her goals.

In this trial, the defendant Rory, I don't think she is aware of all the facilities provided to her. Season after season we watch as she decides to go down the path of privilege given to her by her grandparents instead of taking the laborious path. I don't deny that she is very intelligent and can achieve great things but is that intelligence enough when she has no resilience and frustration management skills? .

24

THE PHONEY THE MERITS EARNED (?) BY DIEGO RIVERA

M.I. Flores Nachón We know the name of Diego Rivera as if he had been another saint portrayed as a statuette in the very grand church that Mexico would be. He is one of the many others that I have talked about in this magazine while discussing the injustice of meritocracy in the History of Art. I dislike Diego Rivera, just like Pablo Picasso.

Again, and with the same information-gathering process, I asked my colleagues: why do we dislike Diego Rivera?

"Besides him being misogynist?"

The myth of what Diego Rivera was and wasn’t has spread from 500 pesos to 500 pesos. He was recognized as one of the 3 great muralists of the Mexican movement. He wasn’t a good person. I don't think he has earned his place on the five hundred bills, and neither has Benito Juárez, but that's another story. With ideals adopted and absorbed through constant contact with great personalities in Spain, France and Italy, Diego Rivera returned to Mexico as a communist. Total leftism and revolution in his message, whenever it suited him. He considered himself a painter and a spokesman for the oppressed, revolutionaries and farm workers, a limitless lover, and most importantly, a paintbrush that gave the Mexican people their identity. All of the above concepts that we have been celebrating are nothing more than a complete romanticization of his internalized racism and misogyny.

25

Muralism emerged in the twenties, with Vasconcelist ideals. Betting on the awareness of miscegenation, the memory and the commemoration of the indigenous presence as essential factors for Mexican identity.

Muralism was a tool of ideological control where the pre-conquest past was presented in a utopian way. I do not find anything wrong with the motivation behind the muralism, nor the intention to celebrate our roots, especially taking into account the moment of crisis in which the population found itself after the Mexican Revolution. However, Diego Rivera was one of the pioneers for all the well known Mexican stereotypes. The reception Rivera’s works throughout history resulted in a phenomenon of confinement; the Mexican is nothing more than a flower carrier and an aspiring worker. We remain locked up, defined by the names that are sung in the Mexican lottery, unable to get out of the exclusive, racist, and generic notions, produced by the internationalization of his art. The alleged search for the definition of identity was nonexistent. Underwater, Diego Rivera tucked his hands more than once. A celebrated face, whose apparent convictions were flexible according to his convenience.

“I never had any morals and I lived only for pleasure, wherever I found it (...) If I loved a woman, the more I loved her, the more I wanted to hurt her. Frida was only the most obvious victim of this unpleasant characteristic of my personality.”

Diego Rivera was not a good man, much less a good lover. Denying the existence of daughters, denying relationships, denying love.

He humiliated his four wives, overlapping relationships with each other, leading them to accept open relationships in order to let them stay by his side, making them compete for his undivided attention, still impossible to get. I am not the one to judge about the merits obtained, I am not free of sin, and much less I consider myself a saint. However, I believe I can help move the magnifying glass away and see more clearly. Diego Rivera is without a doubt the most popular name in the Mexican Art History books carrying by his side Frida Kahlo, who we will not talk about in this article.

Still being locked up, we are part of the game of power, we consume and applaud what is given to us without questioning its precedence.

Let's question everything. Where does all the celebration for Diego come from? Why do I have to keep praising him? A painter who considered himself an anarchist and comunist but who was under the wing and protection of the very capitalist political system. Another ally of the circle of power, relying in his comfort. What does Diego Rivera have that others don't have?

26

During the 20th century, along with Muralism and the Mexican School of Painting, new opportunities also arose for women who sought to be artists. Although it is true that María Izquierdo and Frida Kahlo are perhaps the most recognized for their trajectory classified as surreal painters, there are many more who can receive merit within the new art histories.

Rosario Cabrera painter of portraits and landscapes, Rosa Rolanda doll portraitist, Lola Velázquez -Cueto- puppeteer and explorer of Mexican popular arts, to mention only 3 other great ones, balancing the scales with the elephant.

Rose Rolanda

Rosario Cabrera

We continue in a never-ending discussion when talking about meritocracy in the History of Art. It is knowledge and ignorance that is at stake when we fall into the tight belt of what we are taught in official discourse. It has been a system of farces and lies in which names of convenience are highlighted according to hegemonic circles. It is not about erasing history, but about learning it complete.

Perhaps it is an excellent moment to change the covers of our SEP books and the portraits on the bills and stop believing in the Man in Control of the Universe

Lola Cueto

27

¹A Diego Rivera's nickname was The Elephant. ²The Man in Control of the Universe (1934), also known as The Man at the Crossroads, is a mural painted by Diego Rivera for Rockefeller Center but repainted for the Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City.

Instructions for authors If you are interested in participating in the magazine, you should take into account the following guidelines: All manuscripts or works must be sent to the official Catártica mail, with their corresponding translation into English or Spanish.

All papers received will be submitted for review by the members of Catártica for their selection and publication.

If the editor deems it pertinent, he may make changes and corrections in the writing and style of the manuscripts.

The file must follow the following format: Microsoft Word Arial font Font size in twelve points The upper and lower margins should be 2.5 centimeters and the left and right must be 3 centimeters.

The line spacing should be 1.5 The images and illustrations must be cited in APA format and in addition to sending them in the file, attach them in JPG, PNG or PDF format

@catarticarevista catarticarevista@outlook.com catarticarevista@gmail.com

Magazine Director María Inés Flores Nachón @notae_stethicallypleasing maines_flores@live.com Vicedirector and Cover design Antonella Guagnelli Cuspinera @antonella_gc antonella.guagnelli@gmail.com Editor Fernanda Loutfe Orozco @ferorozco ferlorozco@hotmail.com Editorial Design Junuen Caballero Soto @junuencaballero junuen.caballero@gmail.com Sara Valeria Puch Ramos @vaaalsssp valeriapramos2106@gmail.com

Artists and Writers Antonella Guagnelli Ernesto Ocaña María Inés Flores Michel Cardenas Rossanna Huerta Victor Alvarado